How to Fix the NBA's Gambling Problem

A lot has been made of the Donaghy point-shaving scandal. Some have eagerly offered suggestions to Stern on how to fix it, others don't know what to think and some have taken a much more collected approach while Stern already overreacted. Despite all the news coverage, what most of the public doesn't understand is that if Donagal is indeed guilty, it's highly probable that his actions primarily affected the Over/Under of basketball games, which are substantially easier to control than win-loss outcomes.

Although to some the situation certainly appears dire, it's not near as hard to fix as some people are making it out to be. What the ordeal hinges on is David Stern and his merry band of TPS Report-bearing yes-man, and their willingness to listen to others' ideas while being sure to not overreact. As the Sports Law Professor eloquently points out: this game fixing scandal really isn't that big of a deal, especially considered the amount of times similar situations have happened in NCAA basketball.

With all that said, here are my relatively easy to execute suggestions on how to fix the NBA's gambling problem:

1) Copy the NFL. As Brandon Lang mentions in his interview with Wayne Drehs "In the NFL, there's a task force that on Monday reviews every critical call that came anywhere near the point spread. I don't believe that's ever been done in the NBA." Sure there would be a lot more games to review, but the NBA certainly has the resources to make this happen - why aren't they doing this?

2) Pay the Refs more. As I discussed in a prior post, if you pay the referees more money, they have significantly less incentive to cheat. There's a reason players are rarely involved in these type of scandals: it isn't worth it. Pay the refs $500,000 to $1.5 million. Not only will this help recruit better talent (more people will want to become referees because it pays so well), the incentive to cheat will be greatly diminished. I promise the league can afford it.

3) Finally, hold David Stern to his words and make the NBA truly transparent. In a recent article, Chris Sheridan mentioned posting all NBA referee statistics online. This is a brilliant idea and one I wanted to elaborate on. Not only would this action add transparency, but it would also outsource a significant amount of the work. Stats geeks like John Hollinger, David Berri, Mark Cuban et al. along with numerous bloggers would be all over this data. There'd constantly be outside articles and analysis going on throughout the season in addition to the NBA's own inhouse team.